Chapter 9
It was a good thing that Lucas insisted on the no Naked Big Brother thing, because Andy came bounding out of his room soon after Lucas proclaimed he wanted to get to know me.
A proclamation that shouldn’t seem like that big of a deal, granted. But it was. With Lucas it absolutely was.
I instinctively knew he didn’t say that to just anybody. Yeah, he could have been totally playing me. But, gorgeous as he was, Lucas didn’t seem to be a player. If anything, I could see that title falling more to Stick than Lucas.
When Lucas heard Andy’s door opening—way before I did—he was off me with the speed that had earned him a scholarship to USC. Before Andy’s little legs had carried him down the hallway, Lucas was on the other side of the couch from me with the pizza menu and phone in his hands.
We ordered the pizza and we all wolfed it down, demolishing two larges. Now that I knew I wouldn’t be getting naked with Lucas tonight, I let my appetite run wild, and yeah, probably sublimated one appetite to another.
From the look on Lucas’s face as he watched me lick the grease from my lips, then sank his teeth into the thick crust, he was too.
We watched a kid-friendly movie, Andy tucked between us on the couch.
I couldn’t even tell you what we watched; my concentration was so not on the television.
Lucas had pulled my bun loose as we’d made our way from the kitchen to the couch, and throughout the entire movie he had his arm across the back of the couch, behind Andy, and his hand played with my hair.
His look of regret over Andy’s head told me this wasn’t how he’d pictured the first time he’d get my hair long and loose and lying with him on his couch.
Having a six-year-old kick me in the hip every time one of the cartoon minions did something funny wasn’t exactly how I’d fantasized about it, either.
Around nine, Andy started conking out and Lucas woke him up enough to get him to brush his teeth, put on his jammies, and say goodnight to Miss Lily.
At the last, Andy seemed to come alive, and ran down the short hallway and launched himself into my arms, his skinny arms wrapping around my neck, much like they did when he didn’t want to go under water.
But there was no trepidation now, just pure little-kid emotion. And it was all pointed at me. “Thanks, Lily,” he said, smacking me on the cheek. “Thanks for going swimming with us.” He didn’t let go, and I hugged him tighter to me.
I had to admit it felt good. Until the night Lucas had kissed me in front of the graffiti, I hadn’t been touched—at least deeply touched—since my parents had dropped me off at Bribury and my mom had held on tightly as she’d hugged me goodbye.
That day I’d been eager for them to get on the road, not wanting to hear any more of my father’s instructions on how to “handle” Jane. But about a week later, when the only other human contact I felt had been quick handshakes with new people, I’d wished I hadn’t shed my mom’s hug quite so quickly.
I rubbed Andy’s little back, the worn cotton of his pajamas soft and smelling like fabric softener.
“Okay, buddy, say goodnight and let’s get to bed,” Lucas said, his voice soft but firm.
Andy untangled from me—or me from him—and gave me another peck on the cheek. “See you next lesson,” he said, and returned down the hall.
“Yep, see you Tuesday,” I called after him, not really sure if kids his age had a good concept of how many days away Tuesday was.
Lucas disappeared with Andy into his room, then came out about twenty minutes later.
“Sorry,” he said as he moved to the kitchen and started cleaning up the empty pizza boxes.
“We had to do an encore of Where the Wild Things Are tonight. Apparently once just wasn’t enough.
” He moved the dirty plates to the sink, running water over them, but leaving them. He wiped off the table with a dishrag.
It was mesmerizing to watch this god of a man do mundane household tasks. He would seem so much more at home…on a football field, I suppose.
And yet…this Lucas was maybe even more attractive. How he was with Andy? Total turn-on, I have to admit, even though I was in no way looking for a guy with as much responsibility as it seemed Lucas was dealing with.
Although the male population of Bribury, rich and entitled as they were—as we all were—certainly hadn’t made my pulse jump off the charts like seeing Lucas in swim trunks had.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m just surprised he’d be able to stay awake for two readings, after all the swimming and pizza.”
Lucas looked a little embarrassed. “I think he fell asleep right after I started the second reading, I just didn’t realize it until I was done. I need to start looking at him more frequently when I’m reading to him.” He said the last almost to himself, as if trying to make a mental note.
He came and sat on the couch beside me, in the space Andy had occupied. But he didn’t make a move toward me, he just seem content to sit together. I wrapped my hand in his, content as well.
“This is all new to you, then? Putting Andy to bed? Being the one to take him to swim lessons?”
He stretched out his long legs, put one hand behind his head for a pillow. “Yeah, I promised you the Life and Times of Lucas Kade, didn’t I?”
“You did, but I can take a rain check if you want.”
He shook his head, just a tiny bit, his silky black hair brushing his jaw. “Nah, might as well be tonight. As long as we aren’t going to get naked…” He looked at me with a grin, waggling his eyebrows.
“You’re the one who said we’d scare the children,” I said, teasing.
He let out an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, we mustn’t harm the children. They’re so impressionable at this age.”
I waited, a smile of encouragement on my face.
He sighed again, but this wasn’t exaggerated, it was resigned.
“Okay. Let’s see. Why I’m here taking care of Andy first, or why I’m back in Schoolport and not in the running for the Heisman?
” There was bitterness in his voice. I’d heard it before, and it seemed out of place on him.
He seemed to have more…peace about his current situation (whatever it was) than most guys I knew would.
“Let’s start with Andy and work backwards,” I said, trying to steer him toward what I thought would be safer ground. The small smile that crossed his face as I mentioned Andy’s name confirmed my choice.
“He’s a great kid, right?” he asked. And it really was asking; he didn’t seem at all sure.
“Yeah, he’s great.”
He turned toward me, and draped his arm across the back of the couch behind my head. He placed his other hand on my knee. “You’re around other kids his age, other kids that are in kind of the same…situation. Is Andy doing okay? Is he, I don’t know, keeping up?”
“You mean with swimming? I mean, he’s not too keen to go under water, but that’s usually about half the class of kids his age who haven’t swum before.”
He was nodding with my words. “Right. Right. And we’re working on that. Did you see him today? He went under quite a bit.”
I smiled, remembering Andy’s proclamation. “Four times.”
Lucas chuckled. “Right. Four times.” He looked toward the kitchen, then down at his work boots. “But what about non-swimming? Does he seem, like, more messed up than any of the other kids?”
Oh man, we were getting into territory I had no business going into. “I don’t…I’m not really—”
“I mean, his teacher says he’s doing well, that he’s keeping up with the other kids academically.
” His voice turned to a little sarcasm as he added, “Though I don’t know how the hell they measure academics in first grade.
” His face sobered. “But they do, right? I guess I should know how that’s measured, right? ”
I put a hand on top of his, still resting on my knee. I could feel his tension, see it in the set of his wide shoulders.
“His teacher will tell you that,” I said.
“If they say he’s doing well, he is. They’d definitely let you know if there was something…
” I didn’t want to say the word “wrong,” and yet that was what this all seemed to be pointing to—something had gone wrong in Andy’s life, and Lucas was hoping it hadn’t permanently affected the kid.
“So, this is all new for you? Watching Andy, taking care of him?”
He nodded, his eyes still downcast, his head bowed. I longed to reach out and stroke his head, pull him to my chest, but I stayed still.
“Yeah, it’s all new. Well, at least the living here.” He swept his arm, encompassing the small room. “I’ve tried to be in Andy’s life since he was born. But the past few years I’ve been kind of…checked out.”
“Because you were in California? At USC?”
He nodded, not looking at me. “That. Yeah, at first, that.” His shoulders tensed, hunched slightly. “But then…” He looked over at me. “Just how much do you know from wherever you heard it?”
There was no censure in his voice, just a simple question. “I googled you and it said you were highly sought after and went to USC, but left in your junior year after a bad injury. Shoulder, I think?”
He nodded. I thought back to seeing him in the pool. I hadn’t noticed any huge scar anywhere. “You had surgery?” He nodded again. “But that didn’t help?”
He sat back, sinking deeper into the couch. He moved his hands to cover his face, then lowered them, as if he knew he couldn’t hide from whatever he was about to say.
“It helped. Who knows? Maybe I would have played again, but I fucked up.”
I held my tongue, though of course I was dying to ask.
“I got into…um…” He took a deep breath and turned his body to face me. Really face me. “I got hooked on Oxy after my surgery. I got kicked out of school.”
Wow. I was thinking maybe he got caught cheating on a test to keep up academically or something. A drug habit was beyond my scope. This was a little more than I’d bargained for.
I looked into his eyes, waiting for these strong feelings—which had blossomed so quickly and become so intense—to fade or wilt with the news that he had been (is?) a drug addict.